Sharing Inspiring Self-Help Wisdom By Author, Marilyn Fowler

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Sadness. We know the feeling…like gnawing in the back of your mind or being immersed in a cloud of pain right down to your soul. Sometimes it can be so painful, you feel you can’t survive, and your first instinct is to run away. But the more you run, the stronger it gets. So you resist, but resistance holds it to you. And it can become relentless, almost like a will of its own.

Usually, sadness involves some kind of obvious loss…a loved one, a job, a home, money, personal freedom, anything you value. And the severity of your loss contributes to the degree of your pain. In some situations, you’re able to recoup and carry on. In others, life may take a sharp turn, and what used to feel real and dependable in your life seems to disappear, leaving little to comfort and sustain you.

“Hypophrenia: A feeling of sadness seemingly without a cause.” ~ Unknown

Some sadness we carry may reflect unresolved issues from childhood. And sadness may be something you’ve carried inside for your whole life. You function and get by, and try to avoid feeling it. But sadness lurks somewhere deep inside, and you always know it’s there. You live with it, like part of you without knowing where it’s coming from.
I’d like to share one of my own experiences. My father died when I was six years old, and I never recovered from losing him. It broke my heart, and I suffered deep sadness for many years. Then several years ago, with the help of an Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) treatment, I was able to finally let him go peacefully. I dealt with my loss, and now the sadness is gone too. I will always miss him, but it’s okay for me to miss him. I would not change that.

A lossis a real issue we need to deal with. Everything is energy, and just as physical pain is an energy telling us something in our physical body needs attention, sadness is the energy that tells us we need to deal with a loss in our life. So the goal is to release the sadness and ultimately release the pain of the loss itself.

“It’s important to understand that sadness is a necessary part of healing. It’s a bridge we must cross to resolve the issue and heal the pain. And we need to deal with it.”

1. Clarify what’s causing your pain and sadness, but don’t be concerned if you can’t find a cause. Just refer to it as the loss you’re dealing with.

3.It’s okay to control your feelings when you have to, but allow some private time each day, 30 minutes to 1 hour, to express your pain and sadness freely. Verbalize, release your pent-up tears,punch a pillow, run, whatever expressions help you. Then at the end of the assigned time, stop and immediately go to a pleasant activity you plan ahead of time. Your pain and sadness may, or may not, totally disappear. But as you repeat this exercise during each day, those feelings will gradually decrease and give you peace.

4. Find someone in your life or a class you can attend that will listen and help you through this difficult time. Someone is there for you.

When we’re suffering it’s difficult to imagine pain and sadness someone else is experiencing. It seems like ours is all there is. But we meet people every day hiding their feelings behind fake smiles, afraid to reach out for understanding and comfort they long for. It could be a clerk in a store, a stranger on the street, a neighbor, even a friend. Identifying another’s sadness, and doing what you can to help them through it, can help bring you through yours. And if you’ve already come through yours, you can feel the joy in your heart from helping another. You will both be blessed.